Luck of the Irish
by TStabler
Summary: A Saint Patrick's Day One-Shot. Olivia and Elliot meet at a local bar for drinks, just two friend's enjoying each other's company. When the mood shifts, they decide to push their luck. Will they find the pot of gold at the end of the evening's rainbow?


**A/N: A Saint Patrick's Day fic, by request. Some amazing people read it over, and I thank them with all of my heart. Hope you enjoy. **

**DISCLAIMER: SVU and characters are owned by Dick Wolf. Story belongs to TStabler©**

Olivia looked at herself in the mirror once, her hair swept up in a clip and her green dress hugging her body tightly. She took a deep breath, grabbed her clutch, and headed out of her apartment, down the block to the bar at which she'd agreed to meet Elliot.

She didn't know why she was shaking, really. It was just Elliot. It was just drinks. It was just two friends getting together on Saint Patrick's Day to catch up outside of work and it wasn't in any way a date.

Maybe that's why she was nervous. She wanted it to be a date. Hell, it was supposed to be the luckiest day of the year, and she was spending it with an honest-to-goodness Irish man. Was it wrong for her to want a little luck of her own tonight?

She pulled open the door, and she walked into the loud, smoky bar. She waved a hand in front of her face, trying to make her way to the table in the back. She was grabbed, though, and the cop in her came out. She turned and twisted the guy's wrist, but dropped the arm suddenly when she saw who it was. "Sorry!"

Elliot laughed and shook out his hand. "No, I shouldn't have grabbed your arm like that. I know better," he shouted to her over the noise. He jutted his chin toward the table, which over the years had become theirs, and when they reached it, he pulled out her chair for her.

"Thanks," she said with a smirk. He'd never shown that side of him, not with her.

As he pushed her chair in, he noticed something on her neck. "Hey," he said, sitting down. "You, uh, you're not Irish. At least, I don't think you are."

"I don't think I am," she said with a laugh. "I don't exactly look like...well, maybe my father was. Why?"

He pointed to the back of his neck and raised an eyebrow. "You've got a three-leaf clover..."

She widened her eyes and her hand shot to the back of her neck. "Shit," she spat. "Um...yeah...that's..."

"Anymore tattoos anywhere I should know about?" he asked, grinning, raising a hand toward the server.

Olivia dropped her hand, returning his crooked smile. "Maybe there's another one," she said. "But Saint Patrick himself couldn't get lucky enough to see it tonight."

He laughed as the barman dropped two bottles of a dark lager in front of them. "Sad that we come here so often we don't even have to order," he mused, sighing. "You look beautiful, by the way."

She looked at him as she sipped her beer, raising her eyebrow questioningly at him. "Thanks," she said, looking away from him. "Green is a good color on you."

He looked down at his green dress shirt, and he smiled. "You got this shirt for me."

"I know," she said, nodding. "I think green looks good on you."

He nodded and chuckled. "Come on," he said, tapping her in the shoulder with the back of his hand playfully. "Where is this other tattoo? You've seen all of mine."

"Yours are clearly visible if you take your shirt off or wear shorts," she said pointedly. "Mine...let's just say I'd need to be wearing considerably less. The clover...it's new. I forgot I had it, I never would have put my hair up if..."

"So you didn't want me to see it," he said, interrupting her. "Why not?"

She sighed and sipped her beer again. "I knew you wouldn't understand why I got it, and I wouldn't be able to explain it to you."

"Try," he said with a shrug.

"You're Irish," she said, looking him in the eyes. "Get it now?"

He furrowed his brow. "Not really, no."

She took a long gulp of her beer and said, "You always have my back. Whether you're with me or not. It's...symbolic."

He looked at her for a moment, taking a sip of his beer, and then it hit him. "Oh," he said softly, both eyes opening wider. "Oh!"

She chuckled and rolled her eyes, chugging back some of her drink. "Now you know why I didn't want to tell you."

"That's...that's pretty fucking amazing," he said, his lips curling into a smirk.

"Oh, you really are arrogant," she laughed, gesturing to their server for another round.

He laughed. "Yeah, I am, but I meant that it's amazing that I mean that much to you to merit a tattoo." He raised his arm, his hand slipped to the back of her neck, his fingers dancing over the small, green clover. "It's beautiful." He let his hand rest there, longer than it needed to, and he whispered, "You're beautiful."

She blinked at him. "How much have you had to drink?"

He laughed hard, shaking his head. "Take a damn compliment, Benson. I'm completely sober, and being honest with you." He sighed, dropping his hand, letting it smooth down her shoulder as he moved. "Irish tradition, you're supposed to tell the truth on Saint Patrick's Day, and you're supposed to have great luck by being so honest."

"Like I said," she said with a grin, "No one's getting lucky tonight, Stabler." She laughed as the server dropped their drinks and took their empty glasses.

He smiled at her and said, "I've been thinking a lot about telling you something, for a while now. Tonight...I should..."

"You're going home," she figured, raising the glass to her lips. "That's why you asked me here tonight, right? We're celebrating?"

He scoffed and dropped his eyes. "I'm not going home, no. But...we could be celebrating...if you don't hate me after I tell you..." He stopped, raising his eyes slightly to meet hers.

There was a moment of awkward silence, he was trying to find the words to say. Over the mindless chatter and drone of the crowd, he heard the song playing on the jukebox and he laughed. It was so fitting.

"What's so funny?" she asked, anxious to hear what he was going to say, not finding the situation funny.

"This song," he said, shaking his head.

She strained to listen, and she smiled. The song hit home for her. "Lucky," she said. " By Colby...whatever."

He nodded and he took another deep breath. "Yeah," he said. "Anyway, since she left me, I've had a lot of time to think, ya know? Alone. I really thought about what went wrong, why she was leaving, why I wasn't stopping her."

Olivia sipped her beer, watching him. She leaned onto the table and she bit the inside of her cheek. "Okay," she said, exhaling. "And what did you figure out?"

"I figured out," he began, turning to look at her fully, "That I did not, in any sense of the word, love Kathy anymore. I fell in love with someone else. Someone amazing, and I picked tonight, the luckiest night of the year, to tell her, hoping that luck would be on my side and she's tell me she felt the same way."

Olivia's heart sank. "Does she?" she asked, folding her arms, biting down harder on the bit of flesh between her teeth.

"I don't know yet," he said, shrugging. He sipped his beer and looked into her eyes. "Do you?"  
She squinted, then she gasped and her eyes bulged. "What?"

He laughed and cleared his throat, moving closer. "Olivia Benson, my best friend in the universe, do you have any feelings for me, whatsoever, that might eventually one day become something resembling love?"

Her heart stopped, she lost feeling in her hands because they were gripping the table so tight, and she couldn't breathe. She heard herself speak before she realized she'd formed an actual word. "Yes."

He tilted his head. "Yes? Okay, so...how...what kind of..." he paused again, took a long sip of beer, and dropped the glass to the table with a thud. "I'm in love with you," he spat out, looking at his glass. "Plain and simple, and God damn it, I feel lucky right now, so just say it."

She waited until he was looking at her, and her hands unfurled, releasing the table. She scooted her chair closer to his, she reached up to touch his face, and she gave him the smallest of kisses. Barely brushing his lips with hers, she whispered, "You really feel lucky, Stabler?"

The words caught in his throat but he managed to spit them out. "Lucky as fuck right now," he breathed, his hands moving to her body, laying gently on her hips.

She chuckled, and she moved even closer to him, loving the feel of his hands on her. She pressed her lips to his, only for a moment, hesitantly. She then pulled back, her eyes darting from his eyes to his lips and back again. "Funny," she said. "So do I."

He looked up, looked around, then looked at her. The look in her eyes was enough to send him over whatever edge on which he'd been resting. "Can we..."

She rose, without him finishing his question. She chugged the rest of her beer, figuring she needed a bit more liquid courage to actually go through with altering her relationship with her best friend and partner for good.

Elliot threw money on the table and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door quickly and making his way out of the bar with her in his grasp. He tugged her right passed his car in the lot, and she laughed. "What?" he asked, chuckling. "Your place is closer, and I don't think I should be driving right now."

"You told me you weren't drunk," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm not," he said, grinning at her, "But I don't wanna let go of your hand. If I'm driving...it's a stick shift..."

She pulled him toward her and kissed him again, cutting off his words. "I get it," she said.

He nodded, then pulled her down the street. They weaved through the crowds of college kids in green, drunk off their asses who were stumbling by them. He scoffed as they sped up, eager to get beyond the craziness and into her apartment.

She let him guide her into her complex, up the stairs, and to her door. He held out his hand, and she handed him her key. He opened the door, and he physically felt their relationship shift.

She let out a deep sigh as she turned to look at him, hearing the door close. "El, before anything..."

"Shh," he said, shaking his head and moving toward her. "If we think about this, we'll talk ourselves out of it, and I've been waiting too damn long to do that." He ran his hands over her body, his fingers sliding over the green cotton of her dress. "You have no idea how gorgeous you are," he whispered.

She closed her eyes and dropped her forehead to his, and she cupped his face with her hands. "Please," she whispered, "Just tell me you won't regret this in the morning."

He smiled, pulling her hands off of his face and clutching them in his own. He ran the pads of his fingers over her knuckles, and he kissed her sweetly. "Do you have any idea how much I want this? Want you? I'm not going to regret anything, Liv."

She pulled on his hands, opening her eyes, and she walked backwards, guiding him into her bedroom. Her heart was racing, her mind was shut off, and her body was trembling.

"Liv," he whispered, pulling her close as they stood at the foot of her bed. "It's me." He was looking into her eyes, trying to tell her silently that he knew she was afraid, and that she was nervous, and that she had no reason to be.

She let out a shaky breath, and she moved his hands to her waist, nodding once. She let his hands go and slid hers up his body to his shirt, unbuttoning it. She felt his hands slipping up her body and she felt the tug as he unzipped her dress. She saw him tense up, she heard him gasp the tiniest bit, and that's when she knew he was scared and nervous, too.

He watched the dress drop off her frame and he was knocked breathless. He gazed at her body, lost in admiration and anticipation as she flicked his belt open and pushed down his pants.

It was tense and quiet. Elliot's fingers ran along the edge of her thin cotton panties. He tugged on them, slipping them down a bit, and he smirked. "A butterfly," he whispered, revealing and examining her second tattoo.

She nodded, biting her lip.

"Fitting," he said, tilting his head as he let the garment fall to the floor. "You're a butterfly. You grew into a gorgeous..."

She kissed him, silencing him, and she pushed him gently toward the bed. He got the hint and hit the mattress, laying flat and keeping his arms around her to hold her against him.

He reached around her back and unclipped her bra, peeling it away from her, and he moaned when he saw her completely naked for the first time. "Damn, baby," he panted, smirking.

She bit her lip and gave him a seductive smirk. "You're not too bad yourself, Stabler," she joked. She ran her fingers lightly over his chest, sending shockwaves through his body, making him groan.

He shook his head and moved fast, flipping them over, making her squeal and laugh. "I love that sound," he said. "Your laugh."

She sighed audibly and looked up at him with a smile. "You make me happy."

He kissed her, dropping pecks across her neck and chest before moving to her lips. He linked his fingers with hers and pulled her arms up over her head as she lay flat on the bed. He stared into her eyes as he moved his hips, inching into her, his mind blown by the intense feeling of slipping into her for the first time.

"El," she whispered, her head thrown back, her eyes shut tightly, and a single tear rolling down her cheek.

He hit deep, sheathed fully inside of her, and he kissed her neck and her chin. "Liv," he said softly.

"I love you," she told him, finally voicing her feelings for him, finally letting it go.

He smiled and pulled out of her slowly, kissing away the fallen teardrop. "Definitely my lucky night," he whispered with a soft laugh.

She chuckled quietly giving his hands a squeeze and looking back at him. "Mine, too, El." She held his gaze as he moved, and he looked lovingly back at her as he pushed back into her, wondering how the hell he'd gotten so lucky so fast, and hoping he'd stay that way.

He knew as long as he had her, he'd always have nothing but the luck of the Irish.

**A/N: Quick and painless. One-shot. Hope you enjoyed!**


End file.
